LIKE IT NEVER EVEN HAPPENED!

Posted on June 6, 2023May 25, 2023 by vlaw759

A marriage annulment is a legal ruling that deems a marriage null and void — as if it never happened in the first place. Annulments effectively erase the marriage.

There are two main ways to formally end a marriage: annulment and divorce. An annulment declares that a marriage was never valid, while a divorce legally concludes a valid marriage. A divorce is more common and easier to attain. Annulment requires specific circumstances and evidence.

Most people are fairly familiar with divorce, personally or observationally, so this blog focuses on annulment, both civil and religious.

“The Civil Wedding” (1887)
Albrecht Samuel Anker

Civil Annulment

Because an annulled marriage was never considered legally valid, any prenuptial agreements are also invalid. Plus, neither partner has a right to the other’s personal property or finances the way they would in the case of a divorce.

Getting the courts to grant an annulment can be difficult. At least one party must believe the marriage shouldn’t have happened, and they have to provide grounds to a judge in order to have it annulled. To qualify for an annulment of marriage, you must meet certain circumstances. The following situations typically qualify:

False pretenses: One or both parties were tricked into getting married.
Mental incompetence: One or both parties weren’t legally able to make the decision to get married because of a mental disability or being under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.
Underage marriage: One or both parties were under the legal age of consent (typically 18) at the time of the marriage.
Concealment: One or both parties failed to disclose important details about themselves and their lives prior to the marriage, like having a child, criminal conviction, or serious illness.
Failure to consummate the marriage: One or both parties are unable to be physically intimate in the marriage.
Concealed Infertility: One spouse might be physically incapable of having children, and that spouse might have lied about it to the other spouse. This would involve both fraud and lack of consummation.
Consanguinity: Incest is defined as a relationship between two blood relatives who would be banned from legal marriage in their state. This typically means more closely related than first cousins.
Bigamy happens when one person is already married at the time of marrying someone else.
Underage without parental consent: Lack of consent can happen when one spouse is too young to consent on his or her own behalf, and the other spouse did not get proper consent from the parents of the underage spouse.
Unsound mind: You may be able to show unsound mind if you or your spouse was under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of your marriage. If you were prevented by intoxication or by a mental disorder from understanding what you were doing, you may be able to get an annulment.
Finally, a marriage can be annulled if one spouse threatened, blackmailed, or coerced the other spouse into marriage.

In an annulment where there are children, it’s as if the parents were never married. That means both parents can individually seek custody or work out an agreement for shared custody, much like they would if the child had been born to unmarried parents in the first place.

*“Le Jugement de Salomon” (1649)*
*Nicolas Poussin*

States’ Rights

Just as the requirements for marriage and divorce vary by state, so do some aspects of annulment. Someone interested in an annulment—whether for personal, family, or literary reasons—should investigate requirements of the relevant state.

Sometimes there are time limits on filing for an annulment. According to the Nathan Law Offices, in general, you have four years from the date of the marriage to file for an annulment. However, there are exceptions depending on the reason for the annulment.

And the time limit varies by state. For example, in Michigan, Virginia, and Ohio—and many others—the marriage may be annulled if a case is brought to court within two years of the marriage date.

However, there is no time frame to get an annulment in New York City. You can ask the Court for an annulment whether you have been married for 2 years or for 25 years as long as some of the grounds for annulment are met. Ditto Georgia, and several other states.

In Oklahoma a marriage that takes place before the expiration of six months from the date either spouse was divorced is a voidable marriage. In order to annul such a remarriage, an annulment action must be brought within the six-month period.

In North Carolina, the marriage can be annulled if it was performed under the representation that one of the parties was pregnant, but the couple separates within 45 days of their marriage and no child is born within the 10 months following the separation. Many states allow annulment on a much greater number of fraud-related grounds, but in North Carolina this is the only fraudulent ground available for an annulment.

*“The Marriage Settlement”* (1745)
William Hogarth

RELIGIOUS ANNULMENT

This is a totally separate action. People who don’t qualify for a civil annulment may still be able to obtain a religious annulment, but this will have no effect on legal responsibilities as spouses. This process is not a part of the court system but, rather, a part of the church or institution to which the person(s) belong. However, it serves a similar purpose in that a religious annulment of a marriage typically decrees that the marriage was invalid from the beginning.

In religious annulment, the Church recognizes that a valid marriage never existed under the laws of the Church. Although some other religious institutions provide annulments, the Catholic Church is by far the most commonly used. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll stick with Catholic annulments here.

In 2015, Pope Francis issued a motu proprio, which is essentially an amendment to existing Catholic canon. These two documents, the Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus and Mitis et Misericors Iesus (one for the Western Catholic Church and one for the Eastern Catholic Church), make the process of obtaining an annulment more efficient.

Without an annulment, a Catholic cannot remarry, even if they divorce. A divorced Catholic who remarries without obtaining an annulment cannot receive any other sacraments.

The short of it is that to obtain a Church annulment, the person seeking the annulment must satisfy the Church that one or more of the requirements for a valid marriage was missing or abridged. The long of it is—well—long. (These are quoted directly from the Vatican library of canon law online.)

Insufficient use of reason (Canon 1095, 10): You or your spouse did not know what was happening during the marriage ceremony because of insanity, mental illness, or a lack of consciousness.
Grave lack of discretionary judgment concerning essential matrimonial rights and duties (Canon 1095, 20): You or your spouse was affected by some serious circumstances or factors that made you unable to judge or evaluate either the decision to marry or the ability to create a true marital relationship.
Psychic-natured incapacity to assume marital obligations (Canon 1095, 30): You or your spouse, at the time of consent, was unable to fulfill the obligations of marriage because of a serious psychological disorder or other condition.
Ignorance about the nature of marriage (Canon 1096, sec. 1): You or your spouse did not know that marriage is a permanent relationship between a man and a woman ordered toward the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation.
Error of person (Canon 1097, sec. 1): You or your spouse intended to marry a specific individual who was not the individual with whom marriage was celebrated. (For example, mail order brides; otherwise, this rarely occurs in the United States.)
Error about a quality of a person (Canon 1097, sec. 2): You or your spouse intended to marry someone who either possessed or did not possess a certain quality, e.g., social status, marital status, education, religious conviction, freedom from disease, or arrest record. That quality must have been directly and principally intended.
Fraud (Canon 1098): You or your spouse was intentionally deceived about the presence or absence of a quality in the other. The reason for this deception was to obtain consent to marriage.
Total willful exclusion of marriage (Canon 1101, sec. 2): You or your spouse did not intend to contract marriage as the law of the Catholic Church understands marriage. Rather, the ceremony was observed solely as a means of obtaining something other than marriage itself, e.g., to obtain legal status in the country or to legitimize a child.
Willful exclusion of children (Canon 1101, sec. 2): You or your spouse married intending, either explicitly or implicitly, to deny the other’s right to sexual acts open to procreation.
Willful exclusion of marital fidelity (Canon 1101, 12): You or your spouse married intending, either explicitly or implicitly, not to remain faithful.
Willful exclusion of marital permanence (Canon 1101, sec. 2): You or your spouse married intending, either explicitly or implicitly, not to create a permanent relationship, retaining an option to divorce.
Future condition (Canon 1102, sec. 2): You or your spouse attached a future condition to your decision to marry, e.g., you will complete your education, your income will be at a certain level, you will remain in this area.
Past condition (Canon 1102, sec. 2): You or your spouse attached a past condition so your decision to marry and that condition did not exist; e.g., I will marry you provided that you have never been married before, I will marry you provided that you have graduated from college.
Present condition (Canon 1102, sec. 2): You or your spouse attached a present condition to your decision to marry and that condition did not exist, e.g., I will marry you provided you don’t have any debt.
Force (Canon 1103): You or your spouse married because of an external physical or moral force that you could not resist.
Fear (1103): You or your spouse chose to marry because of fear that was grave and inescapable and was caused by an outside source.
Error regarding marital unity that determined the will (1099): You or your spouse married believing that marriage was not necessarily an exclusive relationship.
Error regarding marital indissolubility that determined the will (Canon 1099): You or your spouse married believing that civil law had the power to dissolve marriage and that remarriage was acceptable after civil divorce.
Error regarding marital sacramental dignity that determined the will (Canon 1099): You and your spouse married believing that marriage is not a religious or sacred relationship but merely a civil contract or arrangement.
Lack of new consent during convalidation (Canons 1157,1160): After your civil marriage, you and your spouse participated in a Catholic ceremony and you or your spouse believed that (1) you were already married, (2) the Catholic ceremony was merely a blessing, and (3) the consent given during. the Catholic ceremony had no real effect.

*One of the most famous “annullers” of all time—King Henry the VIII—created a new religion so he’d be allowed to marry all of these women.*

THINGS THAT MIGHT NOT BE OBVIOUS OR INTUITIVE

Unless otherwise specified, there is no limit on the passage of time between marriage and annulment.

Glynn (Scotty) Wolfe, an American Baptist minister is known for having the largest number of monogamous marriages. He married 31 different times. One marriage was annulled.

A Catholic couple who obtain a divorce can subsequently apply for an annulment when one or both parties want to be members of the church in good standing and/or be remarried in the church.

If one member of a couple applies for an annulment, the other member has the option of agreeing, disagreeing, or (in the case of a couple previously divorced) simply not responding.

If each spouse/former spouse completes the fact-finding forms (done independently), their answers are compared and discrepancies resolved. This process can go on for months!

*“Mariage de Louis de France, Duc de Bourgogne et de Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie” (1715)*
*Antoine Dieu*

Bottom Line: Civil and religious annulments are two distinctly different actions and one cannot replace the other. Be clear about your rights and responsibilities, which vary by state in Civil annulments.

THAT JUST ISN’T NORMAL!

Posted on March 28, 2023March 28, 2023 by vlaw759

I’m not talking crazy or aberrant or clownish. No, I’m talking about the paranormal, events or phenomena that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding.

Storytellers have always been fascinated by characters with superhuman abilities. Throughout human history, such paranormal abilities have appeared in nearly every culture in the world. They are sometimes attributed to historical figures and sometimes relegated to mythical figures (though history and myth often overlap).

Mind Over Matter

Telekinesis or psychokinesis is the (supposed, or hypothetical) psychic ability to move objects at a distance by mental power or other nonphysical means. A 2006 survey of American adults found that 28% of male and 31% of female respondents believe in the possibility of telekinesis. (WikiHow offers a 14 step guide to developing your own telekinetic abilities here!)

*Rama, avatar of Vishnu, in battle against Ravana*

In ancient myths, characters often had paranormal control over elements of the natural world (such as storms or animals) rather than direct control of materials. There are a few notable exceptions. The Norse god Thor and the Greek hero Perseus controlled their weapons through limited telekinesis. Thor could make his hammer Mjölnir fly around, entirely independent of gravity. Perseus was able to make his sword fly further and more accurately than he could throw it to strike Medusa. Vishnu had broader telekinetic abilities, which he used to control the movement of his enemies in battle.

*Franklin Richards (Ultraman) with parents Sue Storm (Invisible Woman) and Reed Richard (Mr Fantastic)*

In the comic book world (specifically, in Marvel comics), Franklin Richards, omega-level mutant and son of Reed and Sue, is probably one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe let alone just the most powerful telekinetic.

Extra Sensing

By definition, clairvoyance is the ability to predict future events. If you are clairvoyant, you know about things that you did not actually see happen or hear about. Some clairvoyants even claim to be able to speak to the dead.

Psychics, palm readers and fortune tellers all claim to have clairvoyant power. Some use a crystal ball for information. Others read tea leaves, tarot cards, marked sticks, bird movements, animal entrails, clouds, stars, bones or dice, dreams, water, smoke, and almost anything else they encounter to tell the future.

Extrasensory perception, or ESP, means the ability to “know” or “experience” something one isn’t able to see, hear, touch, smell, or taste in the usual way. So, such people are said to have an extra sense, a “sixth sense” to perceive the world.

Sometimes people refer to this paranormal ability as second sight. People use their eyes to see the world around them. But those with “second sight” claim to see things that are not there (remote viewing), or to see future objects or events.

ESP in History

Many leaders have consulted those with paranormal abilities throughout history. The ancient Greeks communed with the gods through the oracles. Priests in the Mali Empire advised emperors and military leaders on the wishes of the ancestors. Vedic astrologers read complex charts of the stars to provide Hindu rulers with specific dates and times on which to hold major events.

But our ancient ancestors are not the only ones who consulted clairvoyant experts when making decisions.

Nancy Reagan frequently consulted with Joan Quigley throughout Ronald Reagan’s presidency. After John Hinckley Jr shot and nearly killed her husband in 1981, Nancy Reagan enlisted Quigley’s help to prevent future assassination attempts. Quigley used astrology charts to determine the best times for public appearances, traveling, and even signing the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev.

About ten years ago, a scandal erupted in China when Liu Zhijun, the Railway Minister, confessed to consulting a feng shui master to determine the most auspicious days to break ground on new projects.

Nechung Oracle in Ladakh, 2014
Christpher Michele

Tibet has a State Oracle, the Nechung Oracle, whom the Dalai Lama consults before making major decisions. The Oracle enters a trance state to act as a medium between the natural world and the spirit world. While in this trance state, the Nechung Oracle provides guidance to observers, sharing the knowledge and wishes of kuten, the spirit world.

In the US, one of the most famous psychics in recent history is Youree Dell Harris, better known as Miss Cleo, spokeswoman for the Psychic Readers Network. On late-night infomercials for the pay-per-view paranormal service promised millions of insomniacs psychic help.

ESP in Fiction

Paranormal abilities present a world of possibilities to fiction writers as well. Stephen King’s books are full of characters with psychic talents, such as reading minds (The Shining), predicting the future (Doctor Sleep), pyrokinesis (Firestarter), psychic surgery (Green Mile), and necromancy (Pet Semetary).

Macbeth and the Witches
Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741–1825)

Clairvoyants abound in Shakespeare’s plays, warning characters about things that will come and providing foreshadowing to the audience. Three witches guide Macbeth in his quest to become king, ultimately causing his downfall. A soothsayer tries to warn Julius Caesar of his impending death.

Comic books frequently star characters with a wide variety of paranormal abilities, some more useful than others. Nearly every character in Marvel’s X-Men universe has some form of psychic or telekinetic ability. They range from the extremely powerful telepath Jean Grey (Phoenix) to Eye Scream, a mutant with the amazing ability to turn himself into any flavor of ice cream.

Types of ESP

Wikipedia breaks down Extra Sensory Perception into specific categories, though there is some overlap.

Clairvoyance — The ability to see things and events that are happening far away, and locate objects, places, people, using a sixth sense.

Divination – The ability to gain insight into a situation using occult lists.

*Dowsing for metal ore, from 1556 “**De re metallica libri XII**” book*

Dowsing – The ability to locate water or other resources underground, sometimes using a tool called a dowsing rod.

Dream telepathy – The ability to telepathically communicate with another person through dreams.

Dermo-optical perception – The ability to perceive unusual sensory stimuli through one’s own skin.

Psychometry or psychoscopy – The ability to obtain information about a person or an object by touch.

Bag with objects for divination
Africa, 1880-1920

Precognition (including psychic premonitions) – The ability to perceive or gain knowledge about future events, without using induction or deduction from known facts.

Remote viewing, telesthesia or remote sensing – The ability to see a distant or unseen target using extrasensory perception.

Retrocognition or postcognition – The ability to supernaturally perceive past events.

Telepathy – The ability to transmit or receive thoughts supernaturally.

And so we come to psychics, people who have one or more of these paranormal mental powers and abilities (such as the ability to predict the future, to know what other people are thinking, or to receive messages from dead people.)

Psychic Abilities

Wikipedia presents a list of alleged psychic abilities that real-world people have claimed to possess.

*“The Separation of the Spirit Body” from **The Secret of the Golden Flower**, a Chinese handbook on alchemy and meditation*

Astral projection or mental projection – The ability to voluntarily project an astral body or mental body, being associated with the out-of-body experience, in which one’s consciousness is felt to separate from the physical body temporarily.

Atmokinesis – The ability to control the weather such as calling rainfall or storms.
Automatic writing – The ability to draw or write without conscious intent.
Bilocation — The ability to be present in two different places at the same time, usually attributed to a saint.
Energy medicine – The ability to heal with one’s own empathic, etheric, astral, mental or spiritual energy.
Ergokinesis – The ability to influence the movement of energy, such as electricity, without direct interaction.
Iddhi – Psychic abilities gained through Buddhist meditation.
Inedia – The ability to survive without eating or drinking, multiple cases have resulted in starvation or dehydration.

*An advertising poster depicting magician Harry Kellar performing the “Levitation of Princess Karnac” illusion, 1894*

Levitation or transvection – The ability to float or fly by mystical means.
Materialization — The creation of objects and materials or the appearance of matter from unknown sources.
Mediumship or channeling – The ability to communicate with spirits.
Petrification — The power to turn a living being to stone by looking them in the eye.
Prophecy (also prediction, premonition, or prognostication) — the ability to foretell events, without using induction or deduction from known facts.
Psychic surgery – The ability to remove disease or disorder within or over the body tissue via an “energetic” incision that heals immediately afterwards.
Psychokinesis or telekinesis – The ability to influence a physical system without physical interaction, typically manifesting as being able to exert force, control objects and move matter with one’s mind.
Pyrokinesis – The ability to control flames, fire, or heat using one’s mind.

Shapeshifting or transformation — The ability to physically transform the user’s body into anything.
Thoughtography – The ability to impress an image by ‘burning’ it on a surface using one’s own mind only.
Xenoglossy — The ability of a person to suddenly learn to write and speak a foreign language without any natural means such as studying or research, but that is often rather bestowed by divine agents.
Witnessing – The gift of being visited by high profile spiritual beings such as Mary, Jesus or Fudosama (Acala) from Buddhist Traditions.

BOTTOM LINE: Who knew there were so many ways to be not normal? Surely one appeals to you—or maybe more than one!

FANNIE FARMER: NOT MY USUAL BLOG

Posted on March 14, 2023March 14, 2023 by vlaw759

Because this is Women’s History Month, every day I’ve been spotlighting a woman on my Facebook page. But Fannie Merritt Farmer (1857-1915) deserves more than a paragraph!

(Note: Though she sometimes spelled her first name “Fanny,” Fannie Merritt Farmer was not affiliated with the Fanny Farmer candy company. Frank O’Connor named his candy company after the chef and food scientist in part to ride the wave of her fame in 1919.)

Early Culinary Training

Fannie Farmer was born on March 23, 1857, in Boston, Massachusetts. The oldest of four daughters in a family that highly valued education, she was expected to go to college, but suffered a paralytic stroke at the age of 16. Some say she contracted polio that permanently affected her left leg. In any case, for the next several years she was unable to walk and was cared for in her parents’ home.

*From an 1896 issue of “The Boston Cooking School magazine of culinary science and domestic economics”*

Once she was able to walk again, she did so with a pronounced limp. At the end of her life, she was again confined to a wheelchair. And none of this kept her from achieving much and influencing virtually every household in the United States even today.

During the time she was homebound, Fannie took up cooking for guests in her mother’s boarding house. Not until the age of 30 did she enroll in the Boston Cooking School. The Women’s Education Association of Boston founded the Boston Cooking School in 1879 “to offer instruction in cooking to those who wished to earn their livelihood as cooks, or who would make practical use of such information in their families.”

Fannie enrolled during the height of the domestic science movement. The curriculum covered all the basics, including nutrition and diet for the well, convalescent cookery, techniques of cleaning and sanitation, chemical analysis of food, techniques of cooking and baking, and household management.

Fannie was one of the school’s top students. She graduated in 1889 and stayed on as assistant to the director, and in 1891, she became school principal. The school became famous after the publication of The Boston Cooking School Cookbook by Fannie Merritt Farmer in 1896.

Fannie Farmer Cookbook

The publisher, (Little, Brown & Company) did not expect good sales and printed a first edition of only 3,000 copies—at Fannie Farmer’s expense! Thus she became an early “self-published” authors who made good. Subsequent editions were published as The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (or The Fanny Farmer Cookbook).

The cookbook was titled The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book through the eighth edition, published in 1946. The ninth edition, published in 1951, was titled The New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Not until the eleventh edition, 1965, did it become The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

You can now read the entire 1918 edition of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook online!

Farmer’s book eventually contained 1,850 recipes. As was the custom for cookbooks of the day, she included essays on housekeeping, cleaning, canning and drying fruits and vegetables, and nutritional information. Farmer also provided scientific explanations of the chemical processes that occur in food during cooking,

The Mother of Level Measurements
Photo: Bettmann/Getty

And (in my opinion) the most important contribution for cooks today: she standardized measurements used in cooking throughout the US. I’m not alone in this; food historians have called her the “mother of level measurements.” Prior to Fannie Farmer, recipe authors listed ingredients as a lump of butter, a teacup of milk, a goodly amount of honey, … Level cups and teaspoons (or fractions thereof) as we know them today are thanks to Fannie Farmer.

Fannie Farmer’s Impact

Her cookbook was so popular in the United States—so thorough, and so comprehensive—that The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, went through twelve editions. By 1979, the Fannie Farmer Cookbook Corporation copyrighted and published The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, and Marion Cunningham updated the thirteenth edition.

Farmer left the School in 1902 and created Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery. She began by teaching women plain and fancy cooking, but her interests eventually led her to develop a complete work of diet and nutrition for the ill, titled Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent which contained thirty pages on diabetes.

Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent by Fannie Farmer

Farmer gave lectures at Harvard Medical School, teaching convalescent diet and nutrition to doctors and nurses, and taught a course on dietary preparation at Harvard Medical School. She felt so strongly about the significance of proper food for the sick that she believed she would be remembered chiefly for her work in that field.

During the last seven years of her life, Farmer always used a wheelchair. Even so, she continued to write, invent recipes, and lecture, until ten days before her death. The Boston Evening Transcript published her lectures, which were picked up by newspapers nationwide. Farmer died in 1915 at age 57 of complications related to her stroke/polio.

She is interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Mount Auburn is my favorite cemetery and was the prototype for Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA.)

Fannie Farmer’s Works

As far as I can tell, this is a complete list of her books:

Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1896). Boston Cooking-School Cookbook. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company. A complete list of editions may be found at Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1898). Chafing Dish Possibilities. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1904). Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1905). What to Have for Dinner: Containing Menus with Recipes for their Preparation. New York, NY: Dodge Publishing Company.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1911). Catering for Special Occasions, with Menus and Recipes. Philadelphia, PA: D. McKay.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1912). A New Book of Cookery: Eight-hundred and Sixty Recipes Covering the Whole Range of Cookery. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt, ed. (1913). The Priscilla Cook Book for Everyday Housekeepers. Boston, MA: The Priscilla Publishing Company.
Farmer, Fannie Merritt (1914). A Book of Good Dinners for My Friend; or “What to Have for Dinner”. New York, NY: Dodge Publishing Company.
- [Republication of What to Have for Dinner: Containing Menus with Recipes for their Preparation (1905).]

Fannie in the Kitchen
Fannie Farmer biography

One hundred and three years after her death The New York Times published a belated obituary for Fannie Merritt Farmer. This obituary and Wikipedia are the primary sources used for this blog. I finally found a biography for her, but I don’t have it and don’t know how comprehensive it is.

Bottom line: People should know that Fannie Merritt Farmer was more than a compiler—or even a creator—of recipes.

For other extraordinary women I’ve highlighted on my blog, check out

Trailblazing women in history
The history of women in the workplace
Notable women in psychological history
Pioneering women in the music industry
The struggle for women’s suffrage
Religious historian Elaine Pagels
Science fiction author Ursula K. LeGuin
Mystery author Dorothy Sayer
Interviews with author Fiona Quinn and astronomer Heidi Hammel
My paternal grandmother Margaret Louisa Butcher

BLACK WRITERS IN THE UNITED STATES

Posted on February 21, 2023February 21, 2023 by vlaw759

Who comes to mind? Chances are it’s such Pulitzer Prize winners as fiction writers Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Colson Whitehead.

“From the first African-American Pulitzer winner — Gwendolyn Brooks in 1950 — to more recent winners such as Tyehimba Jess, Lynn Nottage and Colson Whitehead, these writers’ creative interpretations of black life are rooted in research and history.” (pulitzer.org)

Since that 1950 first, there have been six African American Pulitzer Prize winners in poetry (including Tracy K. Smith, the Poet Laureate of the U.S. from 2017 to 2019), four in drama, and a special citation for Alex Haley, author of Roots.

So far, the only Black American to win a Nobel Prize in literature is Toni Morrison, in 1993.

These recent accolades have grown from deep historical roots.

Early Examples of Poetry and Fiction

Lucy Terry Prince, often credited as simply Lucy Terry (1733–1821), was an American settler and poet. As an infant, she was kidnapped in Africa and sold into slavery in the colony of Rhode Island. Obijah Prince, her future husband purchased her freedom before their marriage in 1756. She composed a ballad poem, “Bars Fight”, about a 1746 altercation between white settlers and the native Pocomtuc. This poem was preserved orally until being published in 1855. It is considered the oldest known work of literature by an African American.

Another early African-American author was Jupiter Hammon (1711–c1806), enslaved as a domestic servant in Queens, New York. Hammon, considered the first published Black writer in America, printed his poem “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries” as a broadside in early 1761. His speech “An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York” (1787) may be the first oration by an African American speaker that was later published. In 1778 he wrote an ode to Phillis Wheatley, in which he discussed their shared humanity and common bonds.

Phillis Wheatley
possibly by Scipio Moorehead

The poet Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753–1784) published her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in 1773. This first book aimed to prove that “Negros, Black as Cain,” were not inherently inferior to whites in matters of the spirit and thus could “join th’ angelic train” as spiritual equals to whites. Her mastery of a wide range of classical poetic genres, Greek and Latin classics, history, British literature, and theology proved that claims that only Europeans were capable of intelligence and artistic creation were patently false. Members of the Abolitionist movement embraced Wheatley’s literary prowess, which combined elements from many genres of poetry with Gambian elegiac forms and religious themes to create work that was read and shared by people on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to being the the first African American to publish a book, Wheatley was the first to achieve an international reputation as a writer. Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntington, was so impressed by Phillis Wheatley’s skill that she gave the financial support to publish Wheatley’s book in London.

Victor Séjour (1817–74) wrote “The Mulatto” (1837), the first published work of fiction known to have an African American author. Juan Victor Séjour Marcou et Ferrand was an American Creole of color and expatriate writer. Born free in New Orleans, he spent most of his career in Paris and published his fiction and plays in French. “The Mulatto” did not appear in English until the Norton Anthology of African American Literature was published in 1997.

In 1853 William Wells Brown, an internationally known fugitive slave narrator, authored the first Black American novel, Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter (1853). The story centers around two mixed-race women fathered by Thomas Jefferson and held in slavery in Monticello. Like Phillis Wheatley’s poetry, Brown’s book was first published in London. Inspired by the success of Frederick Douglass’s work, Brown published Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself in 1845, detailing his early life in Missouri and his escape from slavery. In 1858, he wrote The Escape, the first play written by an African American author to be published in America.

Frank J. Webb’s 1857 novel The Garies and Their Friends, was also published in England, with prefaces by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry, Lord Brougham (Lord High Chancellor of England). It was the first work of fiction by an African-American author to portray passing, a mixed-race person deciding to identify as white rather than black. It also explored northern racism, in the context of a brutally realistic race riot closely resembling the Philadelphia race riots of 1834 and 1835. Webb published his novel in London, where he and his wife lived between 1856 and 1857.

In 1859—still pre-Civil War—Harriet E. Adams Wilson wrote the first novel by a Black person that was published in the United States, in Boston. She claimed to have written the book with the sole purpose of earning enough money to survive. Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, In a Two-Story White House North, Showing that Slavery’s Shadow Falls Even There, was largely autobiographical, and most of what scholars know about “Hattie” Wilson is derived from her novel. The story of Our Nig centers around a mixed-race woman in New England, discussing the racism and abuse that went on even in the nominally free states of the North. The publishing world largely assumed her novel to have been written by a white author until scholarship by Henry Louis Gates, Jr proved the author to have been an African American woman.

*Original Manuscript of The Bondswoman’s Narrative*

A recently discovered work of early African-American literature is The Bondwoman’s Narrative, which was written by Hannah Crafts between 1853 and 1860. Crafts was born into slavery in Murfreesboro, North Carolina in the 1830s but escaped to New York around 1857. Her book has elements of both the slave narrative and a sentimental novel. If her work was written in 1853, it would be the first African-American novel written in the United States. The Bondwoman’s Narrative also has the distinction of being the only novel entirely untouched by white editors, presenting the author’s thoughts without being filtered to be palatable to a white audience. The novel was published in 2002.

Autobiographies

Early African-American spiritual autobiographies were published in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, preceding the slave narratives. I won’t delve into those here, except to say that authors of such narratives include James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, John Marrant, George White, Zilpha Law, Maria W. Stewart, Jarena Lee, Nancy Gardner Prince, and Sojourner Truth.

According to Wikipedia, “The slave narratives were integral to African-American literature. Some 6,000 former slaves from North America and the Caribbean wrote accounts of their lives, with about 150 of these published as separate books or pamphlets. Slave narratives can be broadly categorized into three distinct forms: tales of religious redemption, tales to inspire the abolitionist struggle, and tales of progress. The tales written to inspire the abolitionist struggle are the most famous because they tend to have a strong autobiographical motif. Many of them are now recognized as the most literary of all 19th-century writings by African Americans.”

Frances E. W. Harper (1825–1911), born free in Baltimore, Maryland, wrote four novels, several volumes of poetry, and numerous stories, poems, essays and letters. She was an abolitionist, suffragist, co-founder of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, and the first African American woman to publish a short story. She was also the first woman instructor at Union Seminary in Ohio. Her book Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, self–published in Philadelphia in1854, sold more than 10,000 copies within three years.

Harriet Jacobs (1813 or 1815 – March 7, 1897), born into slavery in Edenton, North Carolina, was the only woman known to have left writing that documents that enslavement. Her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Herself, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent, is now considered an “American classic”. For most of the twentieth century, critics thought her autobiography was a fictional novel written by a white author. Jacobs’ autobiography is one of the only works of that time to discuss the sexual oppression of slavery, which led many publishing companies to refuse her manuscript; she finally purchased the plates and had the book printed “for the author” by a printing firm in Boston.

Other African-American writers also rose to prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Charles W. Chesnutt, was a well-known short story writer, novelist, and essayist. He wrote many works dealing with social and racial identity in the American South after the Civil War.
Paul Lawrence Dunbar, who mixed mainstream English and the dialect of rural, Black communities, was the first African-American poet to gain critical acclaim and national prominence. His first book of poetry, Oak and Ivy, was published in 1893.
Mary Weston Fordham published a book of poetry in 1897, Magnolia Leaves. She worked as a teacher for the American Missionary Society, and many of her poems contain spiritual themes, as well as references to family and historical events.
Elizabeth Keckley was born into slavery and became a friend of Mary Todd Lincoln and head of the Department of Sewing and Domestic Science Arts at Wilberforce University in Ohio. Her book Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years as a Slave and Four Years in the White House, focused her narrative on the incidents that “moulded her character,” and on how she proved herself “worth her salt.” It details her life in slavery, her work for Mary Todd Lincoln and her efforts to obtain her freedom.

After the Civil War

One of the most influential authors of this period is Booker T. Washington (1856–1915). Among his published essays, lectures, and memoirs are Up From Slavery (1901), The Future of the American Negro (1899), Tuskegee and Its People (1905), and My Larger Education (1911). Booker Taliaferrro (he adopted the surname Washington later in life) was born into slavery in Virginia and attended school while working in a coal mine, eventually graduating from Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. He was the founder and first president of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University). Advisor to may presidents, he is the first African American to appear on a U.S. postage stamp, or to be invited to dine at the White House.

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963), in addition to being one of the most prominent post-slavery writers, was also a sociologist, socialist, lecturer, historian, and civil rights activist. In 1903 he published an influential collection of essays entitled The Souls of Black Folk in which he wrote, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.” He drew from his personal experience growing up in rural Georgia to describe how African Americans lived within American society. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois completed graduate work at the Friedrich Wilhelm University (Berlin, Germany) and earned a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard University. Du Bois was one of the original founders of the NAACP in 1910.

The Norton Anthology of American Literature (Fourth Edition, Volume 1) spanning the colonial period to the Civil War, includes biographical information and samples of the works by Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Jacobs, and Frederick Douglass. Volume 2, which surveys the years since the Civil War includes biographical information and writing samples from Washington and Du Bois, as well as more than a dozen other Black U. S. writers.

Bottom line: There’s much more to writing by Black Americans than the big name fiction writers (great as they are)!

“Just Friends”?

Posted on February 14, 2023February 14, 2023 by vlaw759

Today’s blog post was written by Kathleen Corcoran

The term “just friends” makes me grit my teeth every time I hear it. It implies that romantic and sexual relationships are somehow worth more than platonic friends. Friendship is relegated to a consolation prize or afterthought.

An Irish Gaelic word, anamchara, captures the importance of intimate friends in our lives. It means both friend and soul mate. In the Martyrology of Oengus, Brigid of Kildare said, “Anyone without a soul friend is like a body without a head.”

The ancient Greeks agreed. Aristotle defined friends as “A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

So if friends are the other parts of our souls, why does society (and the media) refer to intimate companions as “just friends”?

Humans are a Friendly Species

Since the days of wandering tribes of hunter/ gatherers, homo sapiens have needed to rely on the strength of the community for individual survival.

The benefits start in childhood. People who spent more time with friends as a child are likely to have a lower body mass index and blood pressure as adults.

Being around friends causes humans’ brains to release dopamine, norepinephrin, vassopresin, oxytocin, and serotonin, making people happier, calmer, less stressed, and more likely to survive and recover from difficult situations.

Having intimate friends decreases your chances of developing dementia.

When in proximity to friends or other loved ones, a person’s brain releases fewer stress hormones in response to threats.

People with close friends have lower rates of cardiac disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and excessive abdominal fat. If they have a heart attack, people who report not feeling lonely are much more likely to survive.

Even the perception of having the emotional and practical support of friends improves the likelihood of a good outcome when a person goes through hard times.

Having friends is even good for your career! According to a Harvard Business Review study, women with strong friendship circles, particularly when those friendship circles are primarily other women, advance more in their careers and earn 2.5 times higher pay.

“Just friends” keep us alive and healthy!

We Need Friends More Than Family or Romance

**Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make-and Keep- Friends**
by Dr. Marisa Franco

As Dr. Marisa Franco wrote in Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make-and Keep- Friends, intimate friendships provide people with unique benefits that other relationships cannot. Friends provide emotional support without getting bogged down in decisions about retirement and childcare. Platonic friends have all the intimacy of romantic relationships without the obligation to provide sexual gratification.

Katherine Wu divides love into lust, attraction, and attachment. Intimate friends combine the attraction (dopamine, norepinephrin, and serotonin) of romantic relationships with the attachment (oxytocin and vasopressin) of family relationships without the libido involvement (estrogen and testosterone) of lustful relationships.

A study by William J. Chopik found that people with strong relationships with friends and with family experience better health and happiness overall. However, at advanced ages, people with intimate friendships have better health even than those with strong family ties. This might be because friendships that last into old age have already withstood the test of time.

Many women experience more intimacy with same-sex friends than they do with romantic partners.

Close friends (and family and romantic partners) develop similar brain-wave patterns when they are together. However, when they part, friends keep those similar patterns longer than they do with familial or romantic intimates.

That’s a lot of brain chemistry and health benefits from people who are “just friends.”

Things Weren’t Always This Way

*Gilgamesh and Enkidu shared what might now be called a “romantic friendship.”*

Until recently, most people married for reasons of politics, progeny, or property. According to Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage, the understanding of marriage as an emotional institution did not arise until the 19th century.

Before then, people much more commonly turned to friends for emotional intimacy and affection. Friends kissed and cuddled each other, slept together, and provided the kind of support that, today, society only condones in romantic relationships.

When his friend Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh mourns him, saying, “My friend Enkidu, whom I loved so dear, who with me went through every danger, the doom of mortals overtook him.”

In the Bible, King David said of his friend Jonathon, “Your love was wonderful to me, passing the love of women.”

When he lived in Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln had a very close friend named Joshua Fry Speed, with whom he shared a bed and had pillow fights in his pyjamas.

With the rise of women’s suffrage came more female-only spaces, such as women’s colleges, where intimate friendships developed into new traditions and forms of expression.

When a Vassar girl takes a shine to another, she straightway enters upon a regular course of bouquet sendings, interspersed with tinted notes, mysterious packages of “Ridley’s Mixed Candies,” locks of hair perhaps, and many other tender tokens, until at last the object of her attentions is captured, the two women become inseparable, and the aggressor is considered by her circle of acquaintances as — smashed.
Yale student newspaper, 1873

The Lord of Montaigne, a Renaissance-era French philosopher even claimed that friendship was so intense and intimate that women could not understand it.

Seeing (to speake truly) that the ordinary sufficiency of women cannot answer this conference and communication, the nurse of this sacred bond: nor seem their minds strong enough to endure the pulling of a knot so hard, so fast, and durable.
Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne

John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton
detail from The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trunbull

Letters to friends frequently included language that modern writers would reserve for romantic or sexual partners.

In 1779, Alexander Hamilton wrote to his friend John Laurens, “Cold in my professions, warm in [my] friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it m[ight] be in my power, by action rather than words, [to] convince you that I love you.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson said of his friends, “What is so delicious as a just and firm encounter of two, in a thought, in a feeling?”

So how did people move from intimate companions, romantic friendship, and soul mates to … “just friends”?

Blame Technology

Well, sort of. For most of our history as a species, humans have lived in small communities with strong social networks. During the Industrial Revolution, people moved to cities in droves, where those strong social networks were more difficult to maintain. Instead, people turned for intimacy (as well as child-rearing and basic survival) to romantic partners and connections within the nuclear family.

*Friends work together to pull heavy loads.*

Until the 1800s, the word “loneliness” did not exist. The closest word in English, “oneliness,” simply meant being without other people, without any negative connotations. A growing consumer economy, research in psychiatry, and a spreading understanding of evolutionary biology emphasized the importance of the individual alone rather than as a member of the community.

The closed doors and relative anonymity of living in a crowd also changed people’s understanding of sexual orientation and intimacy. Victorian ideals of male and female behavior as being opposite and complementary meant that people restricted their opposite-sex friendships for fear of signalling romantic attraction.

At the same time, people restricted their friendships with those of the same sex due to new fears of perceived homosexuality. As Dr. Marisa Franco wrote in Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make-and Keep- Friends, “Our discomfort with affection in friendships coincides with the rise of homophobia as it is expressed today.”

Psychiatrists like Sigmund Freud and Richard von Kraft-Ebbing characterized romance among people of the same gender as a sexual disorder, creating the concept of sexual identity. As historian Lilian Faderman writes in Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, the turn of the 20th century “was also the beginning of a lengthy period of general closing off of most affectional possibilities between women. The precious intimacies that adult females had been allowed to enjoy with each other earlier — sleeping in the same bed, holding hands, exchanging vows of eternal love, writing letters in the language of romance — became increasingly self-conscious and then rare.”

Homohysteria, the fear of being perceived as being homosexual, drastically curtailed people’s demonstrations of affection and intimacy among their friends. Before the 19th century, society stigmatized people for non-cormforming sexual acts but not for attraction or for non-sexual behaviors. Freud and Kraft-Ebbing, among others, created the modern definitions of sexual identity, which included homophobia.

Today, people are lonelier than ever. People shy away from expressions of intimacy and love with friends lest they be perceived as declarations of romantic or sexual attraction.

Social media technology, despite filling our screens with the activities of friends, can actually make us lonelier. When people use social media platforms to facilitate face-to-face interactions, they report less loneliness and stronger relationships. However, when they replace face-to-face interactions with activity on social media platforms, they report weaker relationships and stronger feelings of isolation. Research tells us that there is no replacement for communicating with or spending time with intimate friends.

Today, on St. Valentine’s Day, I’d like to celebrate all the friendly people reading this. Friends make us happier and less stressed. Friends help us in our careers. Friends keep us healthy and sometimes even keep us alive. Friends make our lives better in innumerable ways. Friends are so much more than “just friends.”

A MURMURATION OF STARLINGS

Posted on February 7, 2023February 7, 2023 by vlaw759

Collective nouns fascinate me, as I’ve mentioned before. I’ve heard a group of starlings called a “murmuration” most often, but I’ve also seen

Murmuration of starlings — *Murmuration of Starlings in France*

A chattering of starlings
A cloud of starlings
A clutter of starlings
A congregation of starlings
A flock of starlings
A scintillation of starlings

In mid-January, a starling showed up at our bird feeder. A week or so later, we saw two. A few days ago, we had a whole clutter of them!

Starlings are boisterous, loud, and they travel in large groups (often with blackbirds and grackles).

Starling flock — *Some starling watchers have created a game of finding shapes in the swirling s of flying starlings*

Attractive Starlings

Juvenile European starling — *Adult European starling feeding a juvenile*

Their appearance changes with age and seasons. Young ones are more brown than black.

Summer starling plumage — *Starling plumage in summer*

In fresh winter plumage they are brown, covered in brilliant white spots. In summer they are purplish-green iridescent—but not as blue-black iridescent as grackles.

Their legs are officially pink, though I’ve always thought they look more yellow. The bill is black in winter and yellow in summer.

Bigger than chickadees, smaller than blue jays, starlings seem to me to be about the size of cardinals.

Winter starling plumage — *Starling plumage in winter*

Starlings have diverse and complex vocalizations and have been known to embed sounds from their surroundings into their own calls, including car alarms and human speech patterns. The birds can recognize particular individuals by their calls and are the subject of research into the evolution of human language.

Starlings are active, social birds. Pet starlings notoriously bond closely with their caretakers and seek them out for companionship. Although wild birds, they are easy to tame and keep as pets. Their normal lifespan is about 15 years, possibly longer in captivity.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart kept a pet starling for several years. He may have written his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, (K. 453) as an adaptation of the bird’s song. When it died, Mozart held an elaborate funeral for it, calling on all the mourners to sing the bird a requiem in procession.

Mozart starling song — *Mozart’s notation of his starling’s song, written in his expense book in 1784, to which he added the note “Vogel Stahrl 34 Kr. … Das war schön!”* *(Starling’s song, 34 Kreuzer… That was beautiful!)*

“Come Here” Starlings

As the story goes, Eugene Schieffelin—an eccentric pharmacist in the Bronx—was an Anglophile and a Shakespeare aficionado. As deputy of a group whose goals included introducing European species that would be “interesting and useful” and benefit homesick immigrants. Schieffelin, it is believed, latched onto the goal of bringing every bird mentioned in the works of Shakespeare to Central Park, and he zeroed in on the Bard’s single reference to a starling in Henry IV.

HOTSPUR: He said he would not ransom Mortimer,
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer.
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I’ll hollo “Mortimer.”
Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but “Mortimer,” and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion.
Henry IV, Part 1 (Act I, Scene 3, Line 228)

However, according to Eugene Schieffelin’s obituary in 1906, he imported starlings for an entirely different reason — to wage war on a particular type of caterpillar that was invading his garden. In fact, researchers at Alleghany College published an article in 2021 arguing that the story of Schieffelin’s obsession with Shakespeare grew out of social and political anti-immigrant sentiments common at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In any case, starlings are an introduced species to America and have adapted well to urban life, which offers abundant nesting and food sites. It took them just 80 years to populate the continent. They are a ubiquitous, nonnative, invasive species. There are so many that no one can count them—estimates run to about 200 million. Genetic research shows that all of these millions of birds descended from the original 80 or so birds Eugene Schieffelin released in Central Park. They’ve behaved atrociously in their New World.

Despised Starlings

Starlings can damage grass turf as they search for food. While looking for worms, the extremely strong beaks of these birds often damage the root systems of the grasses they pull up. Large flocks can destroy crops in your garden and disturb your newly seeded lawn when the birds feed on seeds and berries.

The US Department of Agriculture officially classifies European starlings as an invasive species. Many biologists despise starlings for their reputed ability to outcompete native birds for food and a limited number of nest sites.

Nesting starlings — *Starling chicks in their crevice nest*

They nest in cavities, and each spring they seek crevices in buildings, homes, and birdhouses, as well as holes that have been carved into trees and poles by woodpeckers. They compete for these sites with other cavity nesters, including chickadees, bluebirds and swallows. Because starlings do not have to migrate south for the winter, they are able to claim the best nesting sites before breeding season begins.

This is my major concern: that a clutter of starlings will drive out native Virginia birds currently in our backyard (goldfinch, cardinal, blue jay, tufted titmouse, house finch, blue birds, woodpeckers, chickadee, flicker, wren, brown thrush, even the occasional sharp-shinned hawk and (a few) mockingbirds.

One hopeful possibility: “The evidence that this competition has led to significant population declines is pretty slim, at best,” says Walter Koenig, ornithologist and researcher.

Also, one significant point to remember: starlings thrive in areas that are disturbed by human presence, including dense urban environments, places where more sensitive species cannot survive in the long term. Maybe native birds are simply finding more hospitable locations.

Disastrous Starlings

However, starlings can cause actual public disasters. In 1960, Eastern Airlines Flight 375 took off from Boston’s Logan Airport for Philadelphia and other points south. Seconds after takeoff, it collided with a flock of 20,000 starlings. Two of the four engines lost power, the plane plunged into the sea, and 62 people died. This remains the worst airline crash—in terms of human fatality—that was ever caused by a collision with birds. See the 2017 article Even If We Don’t Love Starlings, We Should Learn to Live With Them by Lyanda Lynn Haupt.

From the same article: “After that crash, officials tested seasoned pilots on flight simulators to see if any could have saved the plane in such a scenario. All failed. In subsequent tests, live starlings were thrown into running engines. It was found that just three or four birds could cause a dangerous power drop.”

Although starlings’ ecological sins might be overstated, their devastating effects on agriculture are beyond doubt.

Starlings damage apples, blueberries, cherries, figs, grapes, peaches, and strawberries. Besides causing direct losses from eating fruits, starlings peck and slash at fruits, reducing product quality and increasing the fruits’ susceptibility to diseases and crop pests. They also lurk around farmyards and lots where they binge on feed in the troughs of cattle and swine.

The US Department of Agriculture counts the devastation as high as $800 million annually. Some researchers estimate that starling cause approximately $1.6 billion of damage to crops and livestock every year.

Dealing with Starlings

The good news is that for the last thirty years or so starling populations have been stable. Every species has a carrying capacity, the number of individuals that can thrive in a given place without exhausting resources, and perhaps starlings are there.

Ecologically, starlings’ presence lies somewhere between highly unfortunate and utterly disastrous.

Starlings are not protected in Virginia or by the federal government, which means that we can remove the starlings and their nests at any time of the year. We might also fill the bird feeders with food they don’t like, block potential nesting sites, and prune trees to deny cover for flocks. If these starlings turn out to be particularly stubborn, we might even play recordings of hawks and predator calls or simply bang pots outside to drive them off.

Bottom Line: Whatever a bunch of starlings are called, they are definitely a nuisance—maybe even a disaster!

Rosy starling (Pastor roseus) — **Rosy starling (Pastor roseus**)

Cape starling (Lamprotornis nitens) — **Rosy starling (Pastor roseus**)

Gift Giving Then and Now, Here and There

Posted on December 27, 2022December 30, 2022 by vlaw759

This is an update of an earlier blog entry from December 30, 2015. I wrote this as part of a series that might be characterized as Darwin’s Christmas, tracing the evolution of a number of our current Christmas traditions.

Gift Giving Origins

blue Santa Claus figurines related to Odin — *Blue-robed Santas reflect the influences of Odin, Saturn, Grandfather Snow, and Tovlis Babua.*

The earliest gift-bringer I read about was Odin, a Pagan Germanic god who is thought to have influenced concepts of Father Christmas in numerous ways, including sporting a long white beard and riding through the night sky. Odin wore a blue-hooded cloak and rode through the midwinter sky on an eight-footed horse named Sleipnir, visiting his people with gifts. According to pre-Christian Norse tradition, he entered through chimneys or fire holes on the solstice.

The Germanic goddess Holda presided over the summer and winter solstices. In the winter, she presided over the first snow, bringing joy and good fortune, traveling in her sleigh and dressed in a red or white cloak.

In 16th century England (during the reign of Henry VIII), Father Christmas was pictured as a large man in green or scarlet robes lined with fur. Popular custom associated Father Christmas more with good cheer, peace, joy, good food and wine, and revelry. In 1616, Ben Johnson presented at court the play Christmas: His Masque in which the character of ‘Old Christmas’ presides over holiday parties with his children ‘Misrule’, ‘Carol’, ‘Mince Pie’, ‘Mumming’, ‘Wassail’, and ‘New Yeares Gift’.

figurines of Santas around the world — *Representations of Santas around the world, L-R: Hungary, 1884; Austria, 1904; Russia, 1903; Canada, 1930; U.S.A., 1935; Mexico, 1923; U.S.A., 1925; Holland, 1920.*

Father Christmas merged with St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas), which morphed into Santa Claus. Suffice it to say that most people around the world who celebrate Christmas also have a tradition of a Christmas gift-bringer: Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, Pere Noël, Father Christmas, Christkindl, the Wise Men (Els Tres Reis), Olentzero, Grandfather Snow (თოვლის ბაბუა), or an old gift-giving witch called Befana (in Italy). In Scandinavia a jolly elf named Jultomten delivered gifts in a sleigh drawn by goats. And in Russia, an elderly woman named Babouschka (grandmother) leaves gifts by children’s bedsides on January 5th.

Mythical gift givers leave presents in different places. In much of Europe, children put their shoes or boots by the door, ready for presents. In Italy, the UK, and the USA presents are left in stockings—and, of course, under the Christmas tree.

Gift Giving Timing

gift-giving-santa-figurine-with-stack-of-gifts

People open presents on different days as well. Children in Holland often receive the earliest presents, on December 5th for St. Nicholas’ Eve. On St. Nicholas’ Day (6th of December), children in Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, and some other European countries open some of their presents. Christmas Day (25th of December) is the most popular gift day for the UK, USA, Japan, and many other countries. In religions that follow the Julian or Orthodox calendar, children open gifts on Orthodox Christmas Day, which typically corresponds to January 7th. Many people in Catholic countries such as Spain and Mexico don’t open gifts until the Feast of the Epiphany, on January 6th.

Gift Receivers

Who gets presents has shifted dramatically over the centuries. At the Roman midwinter festival of Saturnalia, the rich gave gifts and hosted banquets for the poor. Odin gave presents to “his people.” The goddess Holda spread good fortune to all those who honored her. St. Nicholas gave to the poor.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, in early modern Europe, gift giving also had roots in Christmas begging, when bands of young men, often rowdy, would wassail from house to house, demanding handouts from the gentry. The Welsh Y Fari Lwyd or Mari Lwyd custom includes revelers dressed as skeltal horse arguing with households to demand entry and beer, all in rhyme and song. For Alilo, Georgian Orthodox children dress in white or in religious costumes and sing carols house to house in exchange for wine, sweets, and an egg. It wasn’t till the mid-1800s that gift-giving shifted from the poorer classes to children.

On the other hand, giving gifts to heads of state, kings and queens, emperors, etc, pre-dates the birth of Jesus.

Modern Gift Givers

Today, it seems everybody gives gifts to everybody—an impression strongly supported by advertising and merchant specials! Christmas begging from charities is rampant. Salvation Army kettles (which first appeared in 1891) are on sidewalks all over the world. Employers often give actual gift baskets or holiday bonuses. Co-workers, neighbors, and friends exchange gifts. Parents give gifts to children, but people also give gifts to parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and step siblings, and second cousins twice removed.

By now, all the glittery wrappings are probably torn asunder, the gifts put away, exchanged, maybe saved for re-gifting, and the leavings look more like this.

And I’m left wondering: How many Christmas presents are gifts and how many are perceived obligations?.

Darwin’s Christmas series

Christmas Trees and Greenery

Putting Christmas into Carols

How St. Nicholas Became Santa Claus

Christmas Eve Then and Now

Why is Christmas Celebrated on December 25th?

COSMETICS FOR PEOPLE OF COLOR

Posted on December 13, 2022December 13, 2022 by vlaw759

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about makeup for men. Researching that topic took me deep into the worldwide history of cosmetics. But discussions of cosmetics for African Americans or Native Americans were glaringly absent.

There are many reasons for this, ranging from forced relocations disrupting a community’s access to materials traditionally used for beautification, to societal beauty expectations, to cultural practices, even to the way film development parameters affect the way darker skin tones appear in photos and movies. The history of makeup use in darker-skinned communities in America also reflects the segregation and discrimination non-white people have faced. Cosmetics marketed to lighten or bleach skin, hair care products advertised to change texture, and a variety of treatments purported to change one’s racial appearance have been on the market for as long as the market has existed. The idea that one must mimic European ideals of beauty to be attractive is slowly changing.

Native American Cosmetics

In researching Native Americans, I found little that was specified for beautification, but many practices that would improve appearance. Across the entire North American continent, many different environments present very different challenges and materials for skin care and beautification. A Miccosukee person living in the heat and humidity of Florida would have a very different beauty regimen than a nomadic Assiniboine person living on the northern Great Plains. Better Nutrition identifies these 5 specific sources of health and beauty for Native Americans commonly used in the Mojave Desert. The article does not specify which tribe used these methods, but the author mentions researching in Sedona Arizona, where the Yavapai, Tonto Apache, Hopi, and Navajo lived at various times in history. (Bolding added.)

“Desert-dwelling Native Americans used aloe vera gel to expedite wound healing, soothe sunburn, and hydrate skin. Aloe is antimicrobial, antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and it contains antioxidants. Aloe also has phytosterols that help soothe itches and irritation. The bioactive compounds in the plant are rich in vitamins A, B, C, D, and E as well as magnesium, potassium, and zinc that aid healing.

“Agave nectar is antimicrobial and was mixed with salt by Native Americans to heal skin conditions. Agave’s sugars soften skin and lock moisture inside hair. These sugars form complex bonds with internal proteins to add strength, resiliency, and elasticity to skin and hair.

“Native Americans ate the prickly pear and used oil from the fruit’s seeds to help strengthen skin and hair. The oil contains twice as many proteins and fatty acids as argan oil, and is rich in vitamin E, making it an excellent remedy for damaged or mature skin and dry hair. Linoleic and oleic fatty acids help moisturize and restore skin’s elasticity. The vitamin K in prickly pear helps to brighten dark spots and undereye dark circles.

“Native Americans discovered that juniper berries produce a stimulating, astringent, and detoxifying oil. They used it to remove impurities. Today, juniper oil is a key ingredient in detox skin products. It can balance oily skin and open blocked pores and keep them clear. Juniper improves circulation and reduces swelling, making it an ideal ingredient in massage oil.

“Native Americans used the juice from the yucca root to make soap and shampoo because of its ability to lather. Since it’s packed with vitamin C and other antioxidants that soothe and nourish the skin and scalp, they also used it to treat ailments from acne to hair loss. Yucca is also anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and detoxifying.”

Many ingredients in modern beauty products were first used by Native Americans. In areas where maize was a prominent crop, people ground corn to use as a skin cleanser. It was often rubbed on to the skin to remove impurities from the body, sometimes for ceremonial purposes.

By “cosmetics” one usually means preparations intended to make the wearer more attractive, used as part of one’s regular toilet. Such cosmetics are typically removed daily.

Although not cosmetics in the above sense, the oldest materials used in Native American face paint were derived from animal, vegetable and mineral sources, with earth or mineral paint being the most common. White and yellow paint was obtained from white and yellow clays along river beds, and buffalo gallstones produced a different kind of yellow.

A growing number of cosmetic and skincare brands owned by Native people make use of traditional materials. Cosmopolitan recently published an article highlighting makeup brands owned and run by Indigenous Americans, including Prados Beauty, Cheekbone Beauty, Ah-Shí Beauty, and Sḵwálwen Botanicals. Huffington Post wrote about how some of these brands are using marketing and product design to break down harmful stereotypes and educate consumers about distinctions among the many, varied tribal cultures.

Black Cosmetics

By comparison, searching for African American/Black cosmetics turns up a long history of a population underserved by commercial cosmetic companies.

A black man born during slavery, Anthony Overton, opened the Overton Hygienic Manufacturing Co. in Kansas in 1898, to sell baking powder and other products to drug and grocery stores. Recognizing the absence of cosmetics in skin tones for women of color prompted his foray into makeup.

In the early 1900s, large department stores did not stock products for people of color, so Overton developed a network of salespeople who visited small stores with samples. People could also send for his products by mail.

Sales of Overton’s “high-brown” face powder boomed in the United States and countries like Egypt and Liberia. Overton Hygienic relocated to Chicago’s South State Street in 1911, and the next year went on to manufacture more than 50 products, including hair creams and eye makeup. The face powder expanded from “high brown” to include darker and lighter shades, such as “nut-brown,” “olive-tone,” “brunette,” and “flesh-pink.” Importantly, Overton (who had a chemistry degree) insured that his makeup was safe, unlike many products then on the market.

*Valmor Products’ Sweet Georgia Brown skin lightening creams*

In 1926, Morton Neumann, a Hungarian American also a chemist who grew up in Chicago, established Valmor Products Co., which largely targeted black customers. A big seller was Sweet Georgia Brown face powder, then available for 60 cents in colors like “tantalizing dark brown,” “aristocratic brown,” “sun-tan,” and “teezum [tease ’em] red.” Sweet Georgia Brown also widely marketed skin bleaching creams, reflecting the continuing trend trend of equating lighter complexions with beauty and desirability.

What does it tell you that one ad for the face powder promised a “lighter appearance in 10 seconds” and pointed out that the powder “is specially made to give tan and dark complexions the BRIGHTER attractive beauty that everybody admires.”

Unfortunately, skin bleaching has not gone away. Many companies still produce creams, powders, and even drugs that cover skin, chemically bleach skin, or disrupt melanin production, often with painful and dangerous side effects.

In 1923, two white, Jewish chemists — Morris Shapiro and Joseph Menke — opened Keystone Laboratories in Memphis. They split up, and Shapiro launched Lucky Heart Laboratories in 1935. Lucky Heart products were sold only by representatives, often community members, to show the cosmetics “to friends, neighbors, people you know at work, church or in social groups.”

“Both Keystone and Lucky Heart are still in business today. They primarily sell hair and skincare products, with some relics of the past, such as Lucky Heart’s beauty bleaching cream. Lucky once offered makeup products like tint cream and a Color-Keyed Cosmetics line. However, another Memphis cosmetics business, the Hi-Hat Company, prided itself on offering “smart shades for every complexion.” Hi-Hat’s Jockey Club face powder came in hues such as ‘Harlem tan,’ ‘Spanish rose,’ ‘chocolate brown,’ and ‘copper bronze.’”
(racked.com)

In the 1960s, mainstream brands like Maybelline and Avon got into the act. During the five years that ended the 1960s, a half-dozen cosmetics lines for black women debuted. One of them, Flori Roberts, bills itself as the first such line that department stores carried.

In earlier years, women of color mixed shades to make the right foundation shade for their skin. But that didn’t address issues of oil or silicone.

In 1994, Somali supermodel Iman Abdulmajid started IMAN Cosmetics, to serve women whom other makeup manufacturers had overlooked — blacks, Latinas, Asians. The basic premise was/is that skin tones overlap, so cosmetics companies shouldn’t target one ethnic group.

Today, women of color have more options when looking for cosmetics to match or complement their skin tones. Mainstream brands such as AJ Crimson, B.L.A.C Minerals, Plain Jane Beauty, M.A.C., Bobbi Brown, Cake Cosmetics, Makeup Forever, Nars, Lancôme, and others have widened their color palettes in foundation, eyeshadow, lipstick, liners, and contouring. Ulta Beauty, one of the largest makeup retailers in the country, has an entire section of Black-owned brands of skincare, hair care, and makeup products.

Bottom Line: Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And today women (and men) have more makeup and cosmetic options than ever before.

THE MADE-UP MAN

Posted on November 23, 2022November 23, 2022 by vlaw759

Chinese Opera Performer
Denise Chan – Chinese Opera, CC BY 2.0

The men’s beauty and makeup market, already a billion-dollar industry, is expected to grow to nearly $20 billion by 2027.

A recent survey on Ipsos found that among heterosexual men ages 18-65, 15% reported currently using male cosmetics and makeup, and another 17% say they would consider doing so in the future.

Who were the nay-sayers? 73% of men 51 and over, compared to 37% of men 18-34.

Makeup on Ancient Male Faces

Some might wonder “What’s the world coming to?” A more accurate question might be, “What’s the world getting back to?” An article—with pictures—at humanistbeauty.com makes the following five points about men’s early use of cosmetics.

“Hubei Zaoyang Jiu Lien Dun No. 1 Chu tomb unearthed “portable” makeup box, the box is divided into bronze mirror, wooden comb, scraper, powder box, and small wooden comb.”
from New Hanfu

Men were wearing makeup as long ago as 3000 BCE in China and Japan. Men used natural ingredients to make nail polish, face powder, rouge, and eyeliners, all signs of status and wealth. Archaeologists found a “portable” makeup box with a bronze mirror, large and small wooden combs, a scraper, and powder box. In the Han Dynasty, civil servants known as Lang Shi Zhong wore elaborate makeup and hairstyles when they appeared in court. Male attendents of Emporer Hui (210-188 BCE) of the Han Dynasty were forbidden “to go on duty without putting on powder.”

*Horus, depicted wearing khol, from the Tomb of Nefertari*

In ancient Egypt, men rimmed their eyes in black “cat” eye patterns as a sign of wealth (it also helps to reduce sun glare — as modern baseball and football players have found). They also wore pigments on their cheeks and lip stains made from red ochre. Makeup was an important way of showcasing masculinity and social rank.

*Silla envoy visiting the Tang Emperor*
*6th century, China*

In ancient Korea, the Silla people believed that beautiful souls inhabited beautiful bodies, so they embraced makeup and jewelry for both genders. Hwarang, an elite warrior group of male youth, wore makeup, jade rings, bracelets, necklaces, and other accessories. They used face powder and rouge on their cheeks and lips.

*William Cecil Lord Burghley, Order of the Garter*

Skipping to Elizabethan England: the goal was for skin to look flawless. Men powdered their faces to whiten the skin as a sign of wealth, intelligence, and power. Fashionable courtiers dyed, curled, starched, and waxed their beards and moustaches into elaborate arrangements. To achieve the desired effect, men spent hours painting their faces, necks, hands, and hair into fantastic conifgurations that lasted for days before being removed. However, cosmetics during the Elizabethan age were dangerous due to lead, mercury, arsenic, and allum in the majority of products. These cosmetics could lead to blindness, seizures, hair loss, sterility, and premature death.

Makeup on More Recent Male Faces

Five Orders of Periwigs
from The genius of William Hogarth

Men’s love affair with makeup—for specific purposes, traditions, and enjoyment died a slow death in the 18th century when Queen Victoria associated makeup with the devil and declared it a horrible invention.

I read somewhere or other that George Washington issued a pound of flour with each soldier’s rations for use on his wig or hair. Though few soldiers wore full wigs, many attached fake plaits to their own hair or the backs of their hats. During the Revolutionary War, American wig and hair fashions were much less elaborate than those of British aristocrats, like the simpler fashions for ladies’ dresses on this side of the Atlantic. (Washington himself curled and powdered his own hair rather than wearing a wig; he was a natural redhead!)

After the American Revolutionary War, the use of visible “paint” (color for lips, skin, eyes, and nails) gradually became socially unacceptable for both sexes in the U.S. Painting one’s face was considered vulgar and was associated with prostitution and actresses/actors. But did people stop using them?

Of course not! True, few cosmetics were manufactured in America during most of the nineteenth century. However, folks (mostly women) went DIY, using recipes that circulated among friends, family, and sometimes printed in women’s magazines and cookbooks.

Although original sources are hard to come by, you can find some on Kate Tattersall’s blog entry on Victorian Make-up Recipes; powders, lip salves, creams, & other cosmetics of the 1800’s. Here are a couple of examples.

Lip Salve
Take 1 ounce of white wax and ox marrow, 3 ounces of white pomatum, and melt all in a bath heat; add a drachm of alkanet, and stir it till it acquire a reddish colour.

To Blacken the Eye-lashes and Eye-brows
The simplest preparation for this purpose are the juice of elder-berries; burnt cork, or cloves burnt at the candle. Some employ the black of frankincense, resin, and mastic; this black, it is said, will not come off with perspiration.

Pearl Powders, for the Complexion
1. Take pearl or bismuth white, and French chalk, equal parts. R educe them to a fine powder, and sift through lawn.
2. Take 1 pound white bismuth, 1 ounce starch powder, and 1 ounce orrispowder; mix and sift them through lawn. Add a drop of attar of roses or neroli.

*Scientist at the Departmnt of Agriculture tests cosmetics for lead acetate and other potentially harmful materials.*

Of course, the simplest way to “lighten” the complexion was with starch, applied with a hare’s foot or soft brush. Pale skin indicated social class/wealth: brown skin signaled outdoor labor.

Thus lotions, powders, and skin washes—to lighten complexions and diminish the visibility of blemishes or freckles—remained in use.

Druggists sold ingredients for these recipes, and sometimes ready-made products. Given the association of “paint” with prostitution (and actors), products needed to appear “natural.” Some secretly stained their lips and cheeks with pigments from petals or berries, or used ashes to darken eyebrows and eyelashes.

*Victorian men typically adorned their faces with hair rather than cosmetics.*

Technological advances in photography, interior lighting, and creating reflective surfaces led to a rise in “visual self-awareness” throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. This, coupled with a rise in wide-spread advertising through print mediums, created a wider market for commercially produced cosmetics.

In the late 1960s, norms again celebrated ideals of natural beauty—as in the Victorian era—including a rejection of make-up altogether by some. Cosmetics companies returned to touting products for a “natural” look.

Makeup on Performing Male Faces

A Beijing opera performer with traditional stage make up.
by Saad Akhtar

Makeup for actors never went out of fashion, so it’s no surprise that the recent increase in makeup use for men has been led by entertainers. Performers used cosmetics as part of costumes or to ensure their facial features remained visible on stage or on screen. Stylized makeup designs correspond to specific roles in classical forms of Japanese, Thai, Indian, and Chinese theater traditions.

The popularity of the Ballet Russe in Paris in the beginning of the 20th century led to an increase in the social acceptability of wearing makeup. When the Ballet went on tour, there was a corresponding boom in cosmetic sales and advertising in countries where they performed.

Waves of glam rock, heavy metal, goth, and punk musicians in the 1970s and 1980s inspired legions of fans to don makeup to perform and to disrupt social norms. Just think of KISS, Mötley Crüe, Marilyn Manson, King Diamond, Boy George, or Alice Cooper.

The elaborate makeup and costumes of Glam Rock stars such as Boy George and David Bowie challenged gender expectations.

Heavy Metal performers such as Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson are as recognizable for their stage makeup as for their stage costumes and music styles.

1985 Theatre Of Pain – Mötley Crüe (L.P U.S.A Elektra Records 60418-1-E)

Makeup on Modern Male Faces

Men are now open to using a variety of products, including facial cleansers, exfoliants, serums, moisturizers, and most recently, cosmetics.1

*Li Jiaqi, a Chinese makeup blogger and lipstick tester*

For centuries, gender binaries established during the 17th and 18th centuries influenced who typically wore makeup–women! But make-up for men (and those who identify as male) may be here to stay—and goes way beyond entertainers and political statements.

Young Yuh, who has 1.6 million followers on TikTok and posts skin care and makeup tutorials full-time, says makeup is key to his self-expression. His view is that it’s like hygiene, or hairstyle, or any number of other personal choices and should not be bound by gender identification. His daily routine includes cleanser, toner, some type of serum, moisturizer, sunscreen, primer, concealer, contour, blush and eyeliner—no doubt a bit much for many!

The hashtag #meninmakeup has more than 250 million views on TikTok. And The New York Times Style Magazine article “Makeup Is For Everyone” gives a great overview of the most recent developments and resources online.

In 2017, Maybelline launched their Collosus mascara campaign featuring Manny Gutierrez with the tagline “Lash Like a Boss.” Patrick Starr, a Filipino-American makeup artist and fashion designer, collaborated with MAC makeup to launch a collection of his own design. In 2016, Gabriel Zamora became the first male makeup artist to join Ipsy makeup. Advertisements both reflect the current culture and feed it.

Bottom line: Men are now open to using a variety of products, including facial cleansers, exfoliants, serums, moisturizers, and most recently, cosmetics.

(Writers note: depending on your audience, you might want your guys’ grooming to include more than a shave and a hair cut.)

Kamil woman applying khol to her son’s face to ward off the Evil Eye
by Etan Doronne

HOW SWEET IT IS!

Posted on November 1, 2022 by vlaw759

We’ve just celebrated the biggest candy month of the year! The day of the year with the most candy sales is October 28th. And of all the 365 days in the year, the top five candy selling days are all in October.

Just How Sweet Is It?

Over 10% of annual candy sales happen the days leading up to Halloween — that is nearly $2 billion dollars in sales.
Chocolate is the preferred choice of sweets for many. Of the $1.9 billion sold in Halloween candy each year, $1.2 billion was for chocolate candy and only $680 million for sugar candy.
Consumers buy an incredible 90 million pounds of chocolate candy during Halloween week, giving it a strong lead compared to other holidays. Almost 65 million pounds is sold during the week leading up to Easter but only 48 million pounds during Valentine’s week
The average American household spends $44 a year on Halloween candy.
Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy a year for Halloween.
These “facts” popped up during multiple searches about candy. Could all of these “facts” be true? I don’t know. But without vouching for truthfulness or accuracy, I hereby present candy info from across the web.

When Thinking Halloween, Candy Corn Comes to Mind

The Wunderle Candy Company first produced candy corn in 1888, but they called it “chicken feed.”
Americans purchase over 20 million pounds of candy corn a year. With that said, it’s unlikely that every last one of those millions of candies was actually consumed. For one thing, it is the most hated Halloween candy of all. (See below)
After the beloved and beleaguered candy corn, the leading best sellers are as follows: Snickers, Reese’s, Kit Kats, and M&Ms.
Candy corn is the most searched-for candy term in Google — more popular than candy apples, gummy worms, and candy pumpkins.

Looking Beyond October

Candy, at its simplest, is the result of dissolving sugar in water. The different heating levels determine the types of candy: Hot temperatures make hard candy, medium heat will make soft candy, and cool temperatures make chewy candy.
In Europe during the middle ages, the high cost of sugar made sugar candy a delicacy available only to the wealthy.
About 65% of American candy bars were introduced more than 50 years ago.
The actual flavor of circus “peanuts” is banana.
Gummy worms first appeared on July 15, 1981, the 50th anniversary of gummy bears.
U.S. chocolate manufacturers currently use 40 percent of the almonds produced in the United States and 25 percent of domestic peanut.
Fairy Floss was the original name of cotton candy. William Morrison, a dentist, invented it. In the United States, National Cotton Candy Day is celebrated on November 7th.
Americans over 18 years of age consume 65 percent of the candy produced each year.
Frank and Ethel Mars, who created the Snickers candy bar in 1929, named it after the family horse.
Retailers sell more than 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate every year for Valentine’s Day.
In the 1800’s, physicians commonly advised their broken-hearted patients to eat chocolate to calm their pining.

Not A New Thing

Fry’s Chocolate Cream: Candy as we know it today, was first recorded in 1847. This can be considered the first candy ever made and sold officially on the market. The candy was created by Joseph Fry. He used bittersweet chocolate. Today, Cadbury manufactures this “Rich dark chocolate with a smooth fondant center.”

Good & Plenty is believed to be the oldest candy brand in the USA. The pink-and-white capsule-shaped chewy licorice was first produced in 1893 in Philadelphia. It’s still found at concession stands everywhere, which makes Good & Plenty a treat that can be enjoyed by candy lovers of all ages.

Dryden & Palmer dates back to 1880 when rock candy enjoyed great popularity as a cough-cold remedy and delicious confection. Every bar and saloon had its own creation of rock candy dissolved in rye whisky to “cure their patrons’ colds” or at least make them forget they had a cold in the first place. Prohibition hit the rock candy industry hard and, of the original manufacturers, only Dryden & Palmer remains today.

John Ross Edmiston may have been the accidental creator of saltwater taffy in Atlantic City in 1883. His jokingly offered “saltwater taffy” to customers after his boardwalk shop was flooded, soaking his taffy stock with salt water.

Tootsie Roll candy history — *World War I Tootsie Roll Patriotism*

Tootsie Rolls debuted in 1896, introduced by Leo Hirshfield of New York who named them after his daughter’s nickname, “Tootsie”.
- The War Office added Tootsie Rolls to soldiers’ rations during World War II due to their durability in all weather conditions.
- According to USMC apocrypha, marines used Tootsie Rolls as emergency first aid to plug bullet holes during the Korean War.
- In the 1940s and 1950s, “Captain Tootsie” fought crime with his sidekick Rolo in a daily ad comic strip.

Milton Hershey of Lancaster, PA introduced the first Hershey milk chocolate bar in 1900. Hershey’s Kisses appeared in their familiar foil wraps in 1906.

NECCO wafers are pastel-colored candy disks that first appeared in 1901, named for the acronym of the New England Confectionery Company.

Baby Ruth candy bars were first sold in 1920, named for President Grover Cleveland’s daughter – not the famous baseball player.

Milky Way Bar is the first of many candies to be introduced by the Mars family in 1923. It was created to taste like a malted milk that would be available anywhere, anytime. One of the earliest advertisements for Milky Way listed “sunlight and fresh air” as primary ingredients.

M&M/Mars introduced the Snickers Bar in 1930. It is the number-one selling candy bar in the U.S. today.

M&M/Mars debuted the 3 Musketeers Bar in 1932. It was originally made as a three-flavor bar featuring chocolate, vanilla and strawberry nougat. In 1945, M&M/Mars changed to making them with only chocolate nougat.

Soldiers’ rations in the Spanish Civil War inspired Forrest Mars, Sr to create M&Ms: plain chocolate candies in a shell of hard sugar.
- Mars joined Bruce Murrie (son of Hershey executive William Murrie) to produce M&Ms in 1941, marketing them as durable in response to slack chocolate sales in summer.
- During World War II, M&Ms were sold exclusively to the US military because of their durability.
- They were the first candies to go into space, sent with the crew of the NASA shuttle Columbia in 1981.

Hershey’s had an exclusive contract with the American military to supply chocolate for soldiers’ rations during World War II.
- They specifically created the D-Ration Bar to “taste a little better than a boiled potato” to discourage soldiers from eating only their chocolate ration and nothing else.
- The recipe for these emergency chocolate rations made a viscous liquid so thick that it clogged the regular manufacturing machines and had to be packed into molds by hand.
- Hershey produced a Tropical D-Ration specifically designed to withstand the high temperatures in the Pacific Theater.

Multiple sources claim to be the creators of Skittles, including the Wrigley’s candy company and a nebulous British man named Skittle. Today, 200 million Skittles are produced each day.

Sugar Daddies, the caramel lollipops, were originally called Papa Suckers.

Dum Dums “mystery” flavor is always a mix of two flavors. The machine creates them when it switches to producing a new flavor.

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are the No. 1 selling candy brand in the United States, consisting of white fudge, milk, or dark chocolate cups filled with peanut butter. H.B. Reese invented them in 1928 after he founded the H.B. Reese Candy Company in 1923.

Most Popular Candy by Country

US and Canada: Kit Kats and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Mexico and Brazil: Lacta
Chile: Ambrosoli
South Africa: Cadbury Lunch Bar
UK, Ireland, Australia, and India: Cadbury Dairy Milk
Iceland: Prince Polo
France: Les Fraises Tagada
Denmark: Haribo
Belgium: Côte d’Or
Germany: Milka (Germans consume twice as much candy as Americans)
Poland: Ptasie Mleczko
Turkey: Ülker
Saudi Arabia: Galaxy.
Israel: Elite
Russia and Aberbaijan: Alpen Gold
China: Dove Chocolate or Milk Candy, depending on the source
Japan: Meiji chocolate
South Korea: Ghana chocolate
Thailand: Kit Kat

What is the Best Candy?

According to Blog.galvanize.com, we can’t identify the “best candy” (that’s far too subjective), but we can rank categories of candy.

Best-selling Candy in the World

Snickers
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Toblerone
Kit Kat
Dove
Cadbury Dairy Milk
Twix
Milka
3 Musketeers
Hershey Bar

Best-selling Candy in the United States

M&Ms
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Hershey Bar
Snickers
Kit Kat
Twix
Twizzlers
Skittles
Dove Bar
3 Musketeers

Best-selling Candy at Halloween in the United States 2020

Skittles
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Starburst
M&Ms
Hot Tamales
Candy Corn
Snickers
Sour Patch Kids
Hershey’s Kisses
Jolly Ranchers

Most Popular Halloween Candies by U.S. Kids Under 17

Hershey Bar
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Kit Kat
Snickers
M&Ms
Skittles
Twix
Starburst
Sour Patch Kids
Jolly Ranchers

Most Hated Halloween Candy in the United States

Candy Corn
Peanut Butter Kisses
Circus Peanuts
Wax Coke Bottles
Smarties
NECCO Wafers
Tootsie Rolls
Mary Janes
Good & Plenty
Licorice

Most Popular Candy in the United States (not always the same as the best-selling candy)

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Twix
Snickers
Peanut M&Ms
Gummi Bears
M&Ms
Butterfinger
Kit Kat
Almond Joy
Sour Patch Kids

Most Popular Candy Bars in the United States

M&Ms
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Snickers
Hersey Bar
Kit Kat
Oh Henry!
Baby Ruth
3 Musketeers
Milky Way
Butterfinger

Important Dates for Candy Lovers

1/8 National English Toffee Day
1/26 National Peanut Brittle Day
2/1 Decorating with Candy Day
2/8 Molasses Bar Day
2/11 National Peppermint Patty Day
2/15 National Gumdrop Day
2/15 National I Want Butterscotch Day
2/23 Tootsie Roll Day
2/25 National Chocolate Covered Nut Day
3/8 National Peanut Cluster Day
3/26 National Nougat Day
4/5 National Caramel Day
4/5 Peeps Day
4/12 National Licorice Day
4/22 National Jelly Bean Day
5/4 National Candied Orange Peel Day
5/25 National Taffy Day
6/1 National Candy Month
7/7 National Chocolate Day
7/18 National Sour Candy Day
7/20 National Lollipop Day
9/14 Gobstopper Day
10/13 National M&M Day
10/30 National Candy Corn Day
10/31 National Caramel Apple Day
11/4 National Candy Day
11/7 National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day
12/7 National Cotton Candy Day
12/19 National Hard Candy Day
12/26 National Candy Cane Day
12/28 National Chocolate Candy Day

What Candy Does to Your Body

Less than two percent of the calories in the American diet come from candy.

A one-ounce piece of milk chocolate contains about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of decaffeinated coffee.

When we eat sweet foods, we activate the brain’s reward system — called the mesolimbic dopamine system. Dopamine is a brain chemical released by neurons and can signal that an event was positive. When the reward system fires, it reinforces behaviors — making it more likely for us to carry out these actions again.

The recommended dose of candy is just two to three pieces of candy a day.

While eating too much candy in one sitting can do a number on your blood sugar and your teeth, it’s true that occasional excess probably won’t do major lasting harm. In the long-term, however, repeated indulgence in high-sugar foods can increase your risk for a number of health problems.

The effects of added sugar intake — higher blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, and fatty liver disease — are all linked to an increased risk for heart attack and stroke,

Candy has some physical health benefits: Decreasing your risk of stroke and heart attack — Dark chocolate is rich in antioxidant flavonoids, which are healthy for your heart. Regularly eating this rich treat can decrease your risk of stroke and heart attack by 39 percent.

Chocolate has been shown to improve depression and anxiety symptoms and to help enhance feelings of calmness and contentedness. Both the flavanols and methylxanthines are believed to play a role in chocolate’s mood-enhancing effects.

Chocolate can’t replace traditional treatment options for depressive feelings with mood disorders, but science may support its role in your diet. Approximately 70% of people in a cross-sectional survey were less likely to report depressive symptoms if they’d eaten dark chocolate within the last 24 hours.

BOTTOM LINE: Some ways good, some ways bad, always sweet!